THE CLOUDS.
The dark clouds are coming up. They are sweeping over the blue sky and will soon hide it. Why do you suppose they rush along so swiftly? It is because the wind is chasing them. It is blow ing behind them and they cannot stop.
There are many kinds of clouds. Can you tell us about some of them? I am sure you know the storm clouds. They look dark and angry. Wher ever they go they strew raindrops over the earth. The farmer welcomes them, for the thirsty land needs water. They will make the meadows green again.
The rain may pour down from the clouds for many hours. Sometimes they give us so much water that we are afraid it will flood the earth. But at last the clouds seem to become tired. They melt away and let the bright sunshine down on us again.
How thankful all Nature seems for the refresh ing rain! The birds sing again, and everything is bright and fresh.
Who does not love to- watch the thunder clouds upon a summer day? After the sun has risen high in the sky and the air becomes warm, little clouds appear here and there in the blue sky. They act as if they were lost, and we wonder what they can be doing. They keep growing larger and larger, and at last pile up in great rounded masses. The sky is, at times, almost filled with these towers of white.
As we look at these clouds we might imagine that they are hills and mountains far away. Or fancy we can see in their changing shapes the forms of very strange and wonderful animals.
At night we love to watch the flashes of light that come from the thunder heads. The lightning darts here and there. Sometimes we hear the thunder. It sounds like a distant wagon rolling
over the stones.
The fleecy clouds are very different from the storm clouds and thunder clouds. They do not give us rain. They seem to have nothing to do. There they float so daintily, as if only for us to look at them. They seem like patches of cotton dropped across the sky. The sun plays hide and seek among them. Now the sun shines hot upon us, now the little clouds hide it.
There is another kind of cloud. I wonder if you have seen it. Clouds of this kind float high in the sky, 'far above all the other clouds. They look like dainty wisps of soft hair. They are called cirrus clouds.
The clouds which you have seen hanging around the top of a mountain form there because the air is cold. We have learned already that cold changes the little water particles floating in the air into such form that we can see them.
When clouds come down to the ground we call them fog. We do not love the fog. It shuts us in so that we can hardly see which way to go. Watch the fog closely and you will see the little water particles of which it is made. These hang themselves upon our clothes and we soon feel damp.
Have you ever stood upon a hill far above the fog? As you look down upon the fog it seems like or a great ocean of water. The hills rise above the fog like islands.
Fog is quite useful in countries where it does not rain much. It protects the ground and plants from the sun so that they do not dry up so quickly.